New York Waterfront Evolution and Building Culture of the Port and Harbor

by Bone, Kevin; Bone, Eugenia; Betts, Mary Beth

• ISBN13: 9781885254542
• ISBN10: 1885254547
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-10
• Publisher: The Monacelli Press
• More Book Details
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Summary

Created by a team of architects, historians, teachers, and students,The New York Waterfrontis an unprecedented documentation of the rise and fall of the waterfront's architectural, technological, industrial, and commercial existence over the past 150 years. This densely illustrated book vividly presents and preserves the waterfront's development. Superb watercolor, ink, and pencil drawings -- some specially created for this publication -- as well as rare historic pictures, aerial photographs, and maps culled from a wide variety of sources and reproduced here for the first time, make this book the most comprehensive study on the subject. Newly commissioned photographs supplement this already rich array of images, often bringing out the melancholy beauty of the waterfront in its present derelict state. Also seen here are many major modern sites -- the Red Hook Water Pollution Control Plant, the Port Authority Grain Elevators, the Fresh Kills Landfill, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard -- capturing the nameless, inhospitable tracts whose only landmarks are the rusting remains of a once vital commercial life. This illustrative material, together with a series of informative texts written by critics and scholars, reveals a complete picture of the New York waterfront through contemporary projects and visionary proposals, environmental plans and master-planning, built and unbuilt waterfront structures (pier warehouses, recreation piers, markets, and ferry terminals), in addition to a meticulous analysis of a variety of documents and records. The New York Waterfrontoffers a unique perspective on waterfront building so that the lessons of the past can inform decisions about the future. This publication also inspires us to strive for an equivalent greatness when designing the urban fabric of the twenty-first century, the kind of greatness in public works that has in the past distinguished New York City.

Author Biography

Kevin Bone is an associate professor of architecture at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. He is a principal in Bone/Levine Architects in New York and has directed multiyear studies on New York's municipal archival holdings describing the waterfront and the water supply.

Table of Contents

MASTERWORKS	8	(1)
John Jay Iselin
THE PRINTED WHALE (In Search Of)	9	(2)
John Hejduk
REFLECTIONS ON THE ESSENTIAL CITY	11	(5)
Kevin Bone
THE BEAUTIFUL LAKE The Promise of the Natural Systems	16	(20)
Donald Squires
Kevin Bone
The Boundaries of the Harbor
Geological History
Harbor "Improvements"
The Future of New York Harbor
MASTERPLANNING Municipal Support of Maritime Transport and Commerce 1870-1930s	36	(48)
Mary Beth Betts
Founding of the Department of Docks
The Call for Plans
McClellan's Master Plan
Surveys and Mapping
Hydrographic Survey
The Early Projects: Pier 1 and Pier A
The Riverwalls
The Chelsea Piers
The Philosophy of the Department of Docks from 1873 to 1931
Aftermath: The Dissolution of the Department
HORIZONTAL CITY Architecture and Construction in the Port of New York	84	(68)
Kevin Bone
The First Constructions
Early Stone and Earthworks
Cribworks
Block and Bridge Piers
Riverwalls
Piers and Wharves
Piersheds and Pier Enclosures
TRANSFORMING THE EDGE Overview of Selected Plans and Projects	152	(38)
Gina Pollara
The Hell Gate
The Harlem River
Brooklyn
The Era of Robert Moses
EVOLVING PURPOSES The Case of the Hudson River Waterfront	190	(44)
Michael Z. Wise
Wilbur Woods
Eugenia Bone
The History of the Hudson River Waterfront
The North River Pollution Control Plant
Battery Park City
The Road Along the River
Hudson River Park
The Railroad Yards
The Cost of Democratic Participation
The New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan
MODEST ENDEAVORS Reclaiming the Shoreline	234	(30)
Michael Z. Wise
CHRONOLOGY	264	(8)
GLOSSARY	272	(6)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	278